“Professore,” he said, “the stars don’t look as bright to me as they should out here in the country.Why is that?”

As he took a last bite of his own sandwich, Giancarlo gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. Carter turned around and saw the top edge of a full moon just beginning to rise over the mountain behind them.

“I guess that explains it,” he said.

“Yes,” said his teacher. “And by the way, anywhere else you may call me Professore, but up here I am simply Giancarlo, capito?”

“Capito,” said Carter.

Giancarlo settled back against his own pack and stared out at the valley.

“So, Carter, with all this hubbub, you have not yet told me anything about your vacation,” he said. “Have your Italian lessons proved worthwhile?”

“Oh yeah,” said Carter with a nod, “especially down there in the village. I’ve learned a lot. But it’s a relief to have someone here I can finally speak English with again. To tell you the truth, I was starting to get a headache from trying to think in Italian all day long.”

“I can well imagine,” said Giancarlo. “But tell me, where have you been, and what have been your impressions of Italy so far?”

Carter recounted for Giancarlo his first sleepless night in Rome and his later wanderings around the city. He described how much he enjoyed train travel, and talked about the old man he had met that day on the way to Pisa. He raved of course about the food, and he acknowledged that Giancarlo had been right about the artistry of the churches in Italy, but confided that by the time he left Florence, he had seen quite enough of them. He told Giancarlo about the singing bus drivers he met on the way to Castelalto, and lastly about his brief stint working as a roofer down in the village.

“Well,” said Giancarlo when he had finished, “it seems like you have had quite an adventure.”

“You know, I haven’t been in Italy all that long,” said Carter with a smile, “but it seems like I’ve been away from home for ages.”

“A lot has happened since you arrived,” noted Giancarlo. “But it seems to me that there is one thing you haven’t mentioned at all yet.”

The smile drained away from Carter’s face.

“You mean, what happened in Roccasale, right?” he said ruefully.

“Yes,” said Giancarlo. “Did you find your Beatrice?”

“Elena? Yeah, I found her,” said Carter.

“And how did things work out?”

Carter did not reply at once, but instead straightened up, gave a disdainful sniff, and spit out a pepper seed from his sandwich that had been stuck between his teeth.

“I got left for dead,” he said.